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As part of Apple's Spring Forward event, the company announced a major price cut for Apple TV. After announcing that the brand new standalone streaming service, HBO Now, will launch exclusively on Apple devices this April, Tim Cook then followed up by letting the audience know that the Apple TV would be receiving a 30% price cut. The Apple TV now costs just $69, down from $99 previously. This is the same Apple TV that Apple has been selling for a few years, so no hardware changes here just yet--but it's good to see the price drop nonetheless. You can pick up an Apple TV at the new price right now.

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Microsoft that slashed the price of the Xbox One by $50 leading into the holiday season, bringing the price down to just $349. The new pricing applies to all Xbox One bundles, which means that you can even get the upcoming Sunset Overdrive bundle for $349, as well as the Assassin’s Creed bundle that includes Assassin’s Creed: Unity and Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag.

If you are looking for one of the bundles that includes Kinect, even those are $50 less, including the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare bundle that features the custom-designed Xbox One console with 1TB hard drive, a digital copy of the game, and matching controller.

The promotional period for the price drop starts on November 2, and continues through January 3, 2015.

We've received a few emails over the last few days from readers asking about switching to AT&T Next so that they can get the new iPhone 6 on Friday for no money down. AT&T has been notifying some customers who are mid-contract that they can switch to a Next plan at no charge, doing away with contracts going forward. Of course, there are those who are still under AT&T's grandfathered "unlimited" data plan, but others simply want to know if programs like AT&T Next and Verizon Edge are worth it, or if they're rip-offs. The thing is, early upgrade plans like Next and Edge basically allow you to divorce the act of owning and paying for a phone, from paying for cellular service. If you play your cards right, you'll actually come out ahead financially, and you'll be able to upgrade to a new device whenever you want. Let's walk through a scenario of buying a phone with AT&T Next.

Background
All currently available mainstream plans feature two components: a data charge, and a line charge. We will ignore the data charge aspect from here on out, because it's the same regardless of what plan you choose.

AT&T Next offers you a lower monthly line charge ($15 less for data plans under 10GB, $25 less for 10GB and over) in exchange for them not giving you a large subsidy when you buy your phone. Next plans never involve a contract, and you can get out of them at any time, penalty free, by paying off the balance you owe on your phone.

At the end of Apple’s We Wish We Could Say More event, U2 hit the stage to play their new song “The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)” for the crowd. At the end of the performance, though, it was announced that U2 had a new album called Songs of Innocence. After a bit of banter that saw Bono telling Tim Cook that he thought it would be cool if Apple distributed the album to all iTunes subscribers, Tim Cook said it was a deal. The end result? Anyone with an Apple iTunes account gets a copy of Songs of Innocence completely free. Even better, you don’t even have to redeem the offer. If you have an iTunes account, you’ll find that the album has already been placed in your account under Purchases.

The offer is available in 119 countries for iTunes and Beats Music users until October 13th, when the album will be sold for a fee, and show up in other stores as well.

Apple announced two new iPhones today--the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus--but that wasn't all the iPhone news coming out of the We Wish We Could Say More event. Aside from cutting the price of the iPhone 5s in half, Apple has also dropped the price of the iPhone 5c. You'll now be able to pick up the unapologetically plastic smartphone absolutely free with a two-year contract.

Ater announcing the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus during its We Wish We Could Say More event, Apple announced that it was cutting the price of the iPhone 5s in half. You'll now be able to pick up the 16GB iPhone 5s for $99 with a two-year contract.

If you haven’t picked up an Xbox One yet (or, if you need an extra one for the bedroom,) next week will be a great time to buy. Microsoft is running a promotion from September 7 through 13th where buying an Xbox One at participating retailers will include any free game of your choosing that costs $59.99 or less. Yes, that includes Destiny, Bungie’s new title, which drops on September 9. That’s a nice savings, since you’ll probably want at least one game to play on your new console anyway. Speaking of which, the offer applies to Xbox One bundles as well, so if you buy the Xbox One Madden NFL 15 Bundle or the Forza Motorsport 5 Bundle, each of which already comes with a free game, you get another free game of your choosing on top of that.

What do you do when you’re out, need to charge your smartphone, and don’t have a charge cable on you? You get desperate. This can be easily avoided with the ChargeKey, and it’s our Deal of the Day in the Gear Live Deals Shop. You can get the ChargeKey for $24.99, and you’ll have a charger for your iPhone, Android device, Windows Phone, and even tablet, right on your keychain at all times. The ChargeKey is a shortened, ruggedized version of your smartphone charge cable that fits on your keyring—now you always have a cable on you.

For those curious what a VPN is, it is a Virtual Private Network. It allows you to connect to any website anytime you have Internet access. All data sent through VPN is encrypted, which means your information is hidden from hackers or identity thieves. The other benefit is you get to choose the country of origin for your data. For example, means that if you are in Canada putting up with the abysmal WWE Network issues up there, you can instead connect with a VPN, set your country as USA, and get the full experience. Or if you're a Netflix subscriber traveling abroad, you can still access the content.

Aside from accessing the VPN on your PC or Mac, VPN Unlimited also has apps for Android, iPhone, iPad, and even Linux.